


I'll Cut My Hair (To Make You Stare)

by WatercolourSkies



Category: Spies Are Forever - Talkfine/Tin Can Brothers
Genre: Angst, Cuddling, Fluff, Fluff with an unhappy ending, Lovers To Enemies, M/M, more like the SAD Discord, this is for the SAF Discord, unexpected angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25846657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WatercolourSkies/pseuds/WatercolourSkies
Summary: Curt had always loved Owen's hair. Of course, there were many things he loved about him, but his hair was probably in his top five. One of his fondest memories was the day that Owen promised he'd never cut his hair to be much shorter than it was, for Curt.He supposed they never were very good at keeping their promises to each other.Title from This Is Home by Cavetown.
Relationships: Owen Carvour/Agent Curt Mega
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	I'll Cut My Hair (To Make You Stare)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Spies Are Forever fic. I've been meaning to write some since I watched the musical and became utterly obsessed, so I hope you enjoy! Shout out to the SAF Discord server I'm in who inspired me to write and share this.
> 
> Warnings for guns, implied character death and suicidal ideology.

Curt had always loved Owen's hair. Of course, there were many things he loved about him, but his hair was probably in his top five. It was always so thick and silky, and at the perfect length so Curt could play with it whilst they held each other in their arms without the strands getting everywhere. And don’t get Curt started on the colour, the glossy chestnut brown that brought out the shine of Owen’s eyes.

One night, they were laying in bed together, bodies pressed close, legs entwined, silently gazing at each other. Of course, Curt couldn’t speak for Owen, but he was engrossed in appreciating the other man’s beauty, thinking to himself just how lucky he was to be with him. Absent-mindedly, he brought a hand to Owen’s head and began running his fingers through his hair, focusing on one section in particular: hair that fell to the side of his face and that Owen was prone to slicking back during the day to keep out of his face. Now, Curt twisted it loosely around his finger, and Owen sighed in mock-exasperation.

“I’ve got half a mind to cut my hair if you keep on doing that,” he warned, but his light tone and the way he was already leaning into the touch assured Curt that he was only teasing. Plus, he didn’t seem to find Curt’s fixation on his hair when Curt would play with it while kissing from his jawline up to just below his ear, or while Owen drifted off to sleep, a smile playing at his lips as Curt ghosted his fingers over his hair, gently stroking.

Curt hummed, having no intention of moving his hand. “That would be quite a tragedy,” he replied, not even attempting to keep the grin off his face as he said it. “But for both of us, which is why I know you would never do that.”

Owen laughed slightly. “Never? Are you saying I’m not allowed to ever get a haircut, even if my hair gets so long it permanently covers most of my face, or it’s long enough to sit on?” Curt guessed he must have looked skeptical about how realistic the examples Owen was giving were, so Owen added, “Or at least when it’s long enough that I have to wear it in a ponytail.”

Curt made an expression that was hopefully the equivalent of shrugging. “I’m not saying you’re not allowed, just that you won’t, because that would upset us both.” His hand moved to Owen’s cheek, his skin soft except for the faint prickle of stubble. He only had to lean in slightly for their faces to be a whisper apart, and that whisper was, “Besides, you underestimate how good I think you’d look with a ponytail.”

And then there was no space between them at all.

* * *

It took less time than Curt had expected for his fantasy to be fulfilled. While it was only for a few weeks, there was a point when Owen’s hair was long enough for him to wear in a ponytail. However, despite what he'd said before, Curt found himself liking it better when he left it loose. Maybe it was because Owen tended to only tie his hair back for work where longer hair could be a hazard, so when he had it down he seemed more care-free, able to focus on things other than his job (like Curt). Or perhaps it was something to do with a windy day Owen’s hair had started blowing around him as if he was in a shampoo commercial. He had turned to Curt, pointing out something or other about a familiar-looking car in the distance just as the wind picked up, and Curt had choked for a full minute.

Sadly, a day came where Owen proved Curt wrong and convinced him to let him get a couple of inches cut off. Curt had battled valiantly that day, but Owen was persistent, and they had finally settled on that Owen would keep his hair at least as long as it had been to begin with. 

“Promise me,” Curt had said with great severity, "promise me you'll never cut it any shorter than that." 

“I thought you said before that you wouldn’t stop me from cutting my hair the way I want it?” Owen quipped with a devilish smile. "Getting a bit controlling, aren't we, love?" 

Curt narrowed his eyes, taking a moment to prepare his counter-argument. And then he smiled.

“I did say that, and I stand by it. But I also stand by the knowledge that you don't want short hair, because I know how much you'd miss this.” 

They’d been sitting on the couch at the time, so Curt was in the perfect position to press his hand into Owen's hair, his fingers twisting around the locks and moving in a circular motion against Owen’s scalp. 

Owen made an appreciative sound that probably wasn’t voluntary. He attempted a scowl, but quickly realised he'd lost this fight (not that it was really a fight) and only managed a roll of his eyes before leaning into Curt, laying his head on his shoulder and letting him continue what was now mostly a head massage with a bit of just Curt playing with his hair worked in. 

“Okay, I promise,” Owen said eventually, but by that point Curt had almost forgotten what they'd been talking about.

* * *

Years had passed since the days where Curt and Owen could lay together like that, talking about work and anything other than work, everything and things that amounted to nothing but it didn’t matter. Gone were the days of memorising each other’s quirks and habits, not minding each other’s flaws and eventually growing to love those flaws. And Curt had gone for countless days with only the memory (never fading but never as vibrant as the real thing) of Owen’s slightly crooked smile, of the way his eyes would light up when Curt would subtly flirt with him in public in a way that only they could understand the true meaning of, and of course, the feeling of Owen’s hair between his fingers.

He had gone with only the memory of Owen.

That was, until today. The Deadliest Man Alive had removed his mask and revealed a face so familiar to Curt and yet so different… Twisted. Wrong. This was mainly down to things that were hard to pinpoint, more difficult to be sure of: the way Owen’s smile seemed much more like a sneer to him now, how his eyes that before had looked at Curt with so much love now burned with hatred. However, there was something far more concrete: Owen’s hair. It was short now, every lock Curt had lovingly played with until it became second nature to him gone, as if they were never there.

Owen had broken his promise.

Curt could barely pay attention to anything the man, his ex-partner, the person he had loved more than he thought possible and the person trying to kill him, said, his mind taken over by the deafening urge to either drop to his knees, wailing into his hands, or to run at Owen, grab him by the collar and yell at him, asking him what he’d done, why he’d done this, that he had promised him, and you couldn’t just break your promises like this. You just couldn’t…

To stop himself from doing either of these things, Curt was sure he must have all but completely switched off, disassociating from the situation until he could begin to handle what was going on. 

He watched what happened through someone else's eyes, having no real response to anything. Inside, however, his emotions were a raging storm, tearing him apart. Everything anyone said sounded distant, like he was underwater, and was drowned out by his own thoughts of:  _ He’s different. He’s changed. This is not my Owen. He broke his promise. I’m going to kill him. I hope he’s okay. _

The next thing he was fully conscious for was Owen pointing a gun at his head, talking to him. He listened carefully but barely believed what he heard, how little this was like the Owen he’d known, or at least, he thought he’d known. Curt forced himself to keep answering in a measured tone, hoping the moisture he could feel dripping down his face was sweat and not tears. His words were robotic and in no way what he wanted to say, what he was really thinking being far more primal, filled with much more longing. He told Owen he would stop him, when really what he wanted was to hold him, hold him until he snapped out of whatever this was and realised that this was not what he wanted. That he wanted to go back to the days that Curt had missed more than he thought possible just as much as Curt did. Breathing deeply, he managed to keep those thoughts inside, at least until he judged them to be eloquent enough to be let out into the open.

Finally, he let one out. “I’m afraid I’m finding this quite hard to believe.” Owen gave him a skeptical look, jaw clenched as if he were preparing for an insult. “You’re just so different than before, Owen. Owen. Is this, any of this, really what you want?”

For a moment, Owen just looked at him, scrutinising Curt’s pleading expression with an unreadable one. After a few moments that seemed to drag on for a lifetime, all he said was, “I do want this. This is all I’ve wanted for four years. Since you  _ left me _ .” He put emphasis on the last two words, like he thought Curt might have forgotten. As if Curt needed a reminder.

Curt sighed, lowering his head briefly. “If that’s true, then you really must have changed.”

Owen shook his head, and while he still wore an inscrutable look on his face, his eyes glinted in a way that sent a shiver run down Curt’s spine. “Maybe I did change…” Curt grew even more aware of the gun pointed at his head, finding himself only just now grasping how likely it was that he could be seconds away from death. “...or maybe it's that you never did.”

Owen continued talking, and Curt was yet again filled with the need to cry. Owen was telling him to move on, something that he clearly had. Despite never asking about why he’d cut his hair, Curt could easily predict his response: cutting his hair not only helped destroy the memories of the time they’d shared, but it also got rid of something that Curt had always loved, just like what he was doing now. Although, recent events seemed to indicate that Curt didn’t know Owen as well as he thought, so he could have been completely wrong. Did it really matter anymore? Did anything really matter?

* * *

Curt often thought back to that night, especially about just how unlikely it was that he would survive, and yet, he had. It still haunted him how, in that moment, Curt could not have brought to mind one thing he had to live for if he tried. Still, somewhere in him, he had made the decision, although perhaps not completely consciously, that he would survive that day. Perhaps he had taken Owen’s words to heart, and had decided that he was not dying before he could finally move on from him for good, especially knowing about him what he knew now. Maybe it was simply due to his survival instinct and nothing more. Whatever it was, he was now in a place where he could be grateful to his past self for caring just enough to fight to see another day.

Sometimes, he wondered whether, if Owen hadn’t changed his hair, or if Curt hadn’t reacted to it the way he had, Owen might be alive in his place. Perhaps they both would have survived. He tried not to linger on those thoughts, though. While little of what Owen had said that day sat right with Curt, they could agree on one thing: it was time for him to move on.


End file.
